[playcache]

One thing I am missing here. Docker, as much as it has the shortcomings you list, has an entire fleet of posix libraries, utils and tools at its availability. This has meant 99% of applications could wholesale lift their application and deploy it within a container. When I look at WASM/WASI there is no networking API, no storage API, crypto, etc etc. I can see its value for offloading parts of a web application that require a more speedy execution, but I cannot see anyway of running a full headless application which is where containers are hugely utilised right now.

[the_duke]

Yeah, progress on WASI has been painfully slow.

I think a big reason is that it was pushed by Mozilla, but they laid off all the related employees, and now no-one is really allocating resources to push it forward.

Plus it's still blocked by related proposal like interface types.

[playcache]

I know what WASI is, my point is that there is no where near parity with existing posix implementations. I have been following the bytecode alliance and webassembly communities for a while and they can't seem to get beyond the design phase. You only need to look at the networking API [0] and the thread has not been updated for two months, with prior to that folks asking is the work even happening still

[0] https://github.com/WebAssembly/WASI/issues/370

[jvanderbot]

What's preventing the compilation of dependencies to WASM? Couldn't I (at extreme) run an alpine linux container distro inside WASM? At that point we're full circle, but it should be possible, right?